"This way," cried my guide, who laughed uproariously, and seemed one of the merriest fellows imaginable; "this way--Vive la joie! we are all right now!"
"Where are you leading me, in the name of all that is miraculous?" I exclaimed, as my companion, laying violent hands upon my sash, almost dragged me down a flight of steps, which apparently led into the bowels of the earth. The appearance of the vast depth to which they descended being increased by a few hazy oil lamps that twinkled at the bottom.
"Excuse me, Monsieur," said I; "what the mischief--'t is a strange den this! I will go no further!"
"Courage, mon brave! courage! why we have only descended about a hundred steps or so;" replied the Frenchman, still continuing to descend. "You will find this an old and odd place too; but if you would escape an enraged rabble, the claws of the police, the maison de force, the prison, and the devil, follow me, and trust to my honour. I am Antoine St. Florian, Captain of the Garde du Corps, and late of the 23rd Grenadiers under the Emperor. You are safe--I know every nook in this subterranean world, for I have found a shelter in its ample womb many a time before to-night."
He still continued to speak as he descended, but the sound of his voice became lost in the vast space of the hollow vaults; my curiosity was excited: I still kept my sabre drawn, prepared for any sudden surprise or act of treachery, and continued to descend some hundred steps, to a depth which I afterwards ascertained to be 860 feet.
"This way, Monsieur; on--on yet!" exclaimed my conductor, hurrying me forward through a gloomy vault, and at that moment I heard the uproar of the multitude, and the buzz of their mingled voices resounding afar off, and high above us at the mouth of the lofty staircase.
The aspect of the place in which I so suddenly found myself was so strange, so novel, so grotesquely horrible, that for some moments I was unable to speak, and gazed about me in astonishment. The whole place seemed hewn out of the solid rock, and the height of its roof was about twelve feet from the floor, which was uniformly paved. In every direction caverns were seen branching off lighted by lamps which vanished away in long lines of perspective till they seemed to twinkle and expire amid the noxious and foggy vapours of this wonderful place, which appeared like a vast subterranean city, or the work of enchantment. The atmosphere was cold as that of a winter day, and I was sensible of the utmost difficulty of respiration.